After a long way avoiding more dark creatures of the forest, with the sky still was getting dark, they found a neglected hut. Emma walked towards the hut, studying it. "Somebody used to live in this dark forest?"
"A long time ago, the fairies made this place for the lost boys. They used to play here before Peter Pan came." Hook said.
"We can use it as a temporary resting place. What do you think?"
"Now you finally need a rest. I couldn't say no to keep yourself secure." Hook replied.
Emma stared at him for a moment before she finally got what he means. "Yeah, I don't want any fog eating me tonight either."
They walked into the hut, and found that everything in that place is almost destroyed. The bed was left untidy, the table was reversed, and the cupboard along with its contents was almost torn apart. Barely anything was intact. "What the hell happened here?" The shocked Emma asked Hook who was standing beside the door. "I thought it was their playground or something."
"I said before Peter Pan came." He corrected. "He affected them so much and tore them apart, so they became his accomplices all over Neverland. Finding lost boys and bring 'em to him."
"What did he do with them? I didn't know Peter Pan could be this bad." Emma looked at him in disbelief.
"I have no idea. Alas, it wouldn't be our concern. Well, I will find something to eat while you rest safely here."
"Where are you going?" Emma inquired impulsively. She felt somewhat afraid if it turns out Hook will betray her and leave her to mend herself in a hut in the middle of a mysterious forest. She almost forgot, it has been a long time since she has a real meal. But deep inside, she doesn't want to be left alone.
"Somewhere that has something we can eat. You don't want to die of starvation before you could find Henry, do you?" He asked.
"I just—, fine. Make it quick."
Hook stepped closer to Emma and looked right at her green eyes, "I promise I will be back."
For a moment Emma was worried, but now she finally has faith in him. Emma nodded in reply, and Hook walked out the door. Emma sat carefully on a fragile wooden bench, and let herself fall asleep as the heavy wind suddenly blew around their surroundings.
~o~
"Bad timing." Hook thought to himself. He hoofed through the wind, picking up some safe fruits from a tree and put it inside his shoulder bag. After he picked quite a lot for their needs, He turned back to the hut's way but a teenage boy wearing an old and worn-in robe perching on top of a tree caught his attention.
"Gotcha." He said as he shot a bow aiming at Hook and exactly hit his right shoulder.
Hook fell down and winced in pain. "Do you think you can get away from The Lost Boys Hook?" One of the Lost Boys settled from the tree and looked down at Hook who was injured badly lying down on the ground.
"I don't remember the day I—Aah. Bloody hell." Hook shrieked in pain when the boy pulled the dart from his shoulder ruthlessly.
"People like you are wasting my stock," the boy said as he putted the dart back to his bag. "The fact that you sailed back here from your enormous journey is striking his attention, Captain."
A deep crease appeared on his forehead, how his attendance in Neverland could be heard by him, "It has nothing to do with you or with him."
"Actually I am in need to know where the boy's location is." He still asked, giving him a short side-glance.
Hook was always getting annoyed if the Lost Boys ask him about the person they're looking for. It's not like he always knew whoever came to Neverland. "I don't have any idea about any boy you're interested in." He said, trying to get up, but the weight of his shadow was enough to drag him back down.
"Where is Henry?" He demanded as he kicked Hook's injured shoulder, preventing him to move.
Hook was surprised to hear Henry's name. The one kid of someone he care, Emma. His jaw muscles clenched in the thought of he wanted Henry, "What do you want with him?"
"I think you meant, what does he want with him?" The boy corrected. "I bet you already know what he will do to people who lie to him Captain. He will rip your shadow right from your body."ssss
"I gather it hurts." Hook grinned.
"Oh yes, it does. You better tell me, or I'll shoot you from this distance, and you'll be dead in seconds before he could even rip your shadow." He said as he pulled his bow and pointed it right at Hook's chest.
"Is that the best you can do, kid?" He tied his hook to the bow and tried with all of the power he had left to throw it up to the air. The boy tried to punch him, but he dismissed it with his hook immediately. "You go now or my hook will crush you until it penetrates your bones. Trust me, you don't want that to happen."
The boy ran in fear to the deep forest. The still wounded Hook tried to stand up as he dusted the remains of the fallen leaves off his coat. He slouched his body a bit to grab his handle of his bag on his shoulder and slowly walked towards the hut.
Emma who was asleep in the wooden bench woke up immediately after Hook came back. She felt grateful her belief in him didn't turn into crap. "Hey, lass." Hook tried to walk as normal as possible to cover up his pain from the wound.
"What did you find?" She asked, taking his bag off from him.
"Some safe tropical fruit." He said as he threw himself to the bench. His head leans on the bench's back limply.
Emma started eating the fruits and jammed herself into a damaged dining table's chair in front of Hook. Then she realized something's wrong from him. She began to study Hook's presence slowly, from his head to his toe. Hook used to be this firm, and dauntless pirate who has nothing to fear. But now he just leaned weakly on the bench, doing nothing.
"You're not eating?" Emma asked. "You gathered quite a stock."
Hook shook his head, "I must let the lad eat it first. But leave some for me."
"Are you okay?" She finally said it. "You looked… a bit different."
He managed a weak smile and approached Emma to the dining table. "Am I? Do we have any rum left, lass?"
"None, I think. Do you want to drink instead of eat?" Then her mind remembered one thing, there's no way Hook would ask for a rum before he eats something. She carefully scanned his, looking for something wrong that would cause his odd behavior. And she spotted a large wound on his right shoulder, hidden in his bag of his satchel's bond still freshly bleeding.
"Hook, what was happening back then?" Emma asked, her voice wavered in concern. She moved closer to him and tried to look at it. "You're injured. Let me take a l—"
"No, it's fine." He shrugged off.
"No, it's not!"
A strain of memories flashed back through Emma's mind, beanstalk moments that she always remembered. The way Hook binded her hand's cut. Hook was right, you never forget your first beanstalk. "I believe monsters here can smell that blood of yours." Emma replayed Hook's words from the beanstalk. He grinned in the memory of that.
"We don't have anything useful with us to cure it, though." Hook said, narrowing his eyes. "Except the rum which I obviously doesn't have."
Emma looked at him, slightly perturbed. He's right, nothing in here could help her heal his wound. "I should find a natural remedy out there."
Hook held Emma's hand, preventing her from leaving. "No, don't ever go there without someone who knows this land very well."
Hook's right, she thought. She barely knew places in Neverland, and she can't go there finding natural remedy in the forest alone. "Okay, maybe there was something Pan left here." Emma searched for something useful around the hut. She opened the drawers, cupboards and boxes but she couldn't find anything but rubbish from the old stuff.
But her eyes caught an old deformed box in the bottom of a bed. She took it outside and opened it carefully. She was hoping for a first aid kit, but turned out it was a book. An aged book titled, 'Neverland and other stories.'
"Hook." She called him. "I found something. It's a book." Emma said with a jittery tone on her voice.
Hook approached Emma, and she showed it to him. "Is it the book you're looking for?"
He tried to feel the book by his right hand as he bear the pain from the wound. The cover of the book felt rough and meddle fragile, it truly seemed like a book that was lost in time.
He smiled in a satisfaction, "Aye, it is."
Emma brought the book to the table, and they turned the page from the very beginning.